Melissa Bank, whose first book, The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing, became a global publishing phenomenon in 1999, died on August 9 at her home in East Hampton. She was 61.

The book is a collection of seven stories about a girl named Jane Rosenal, from age 14 until her mid-30s, during which time she navigates sex, death, money and friends. Jane is sharp, independent and bitingly funny — not unlike Ms. Bank herself, it has been said. The Guide made the New York Times’s best-seller list, was translated into dozens of languages, and sold more than 1.5 million copies. Two of the stories from the book were adapted into the 2007 film, “Suburban Girl,” starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin.

Ms. Bank taught at the Southampton Writers Conference, and later in the MFA program at the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University.